The present invention relates to improvements in a safety strap assembly for linemen.
A conventional lineman's safety strap, used in climbing wooden utility poles, consists of a belt worn around the lineman's body, provided with means, generally rings, for attaching an elongated strap. The strap, generally of a heavy but somewhat flexible material, passes around the far side of the pole and is generally attached to the rings on the body belt with hooks having a safety catch feature to prevent unintended uncoupling.
The lineman has inwardly directed spikes attached at his feet with which he pierces the pole at each step to secure his position. In order to quickly insert and retract his feet spikes at each step, the lineman generally adopts a side-to-side rolling motion climbing up and down the pole.
The safety strap provides additional support for the lineman as he climbs, and also frees his hands.
Safety problems arise when one or both of the lineman's spikes or gats do not make good contact with the wood of the pole for any number of reasons, causing the lineman to miss his footing and to fall. While the conventional safety strap provides support for the lineman on normal ascent and descent of the pole, it has no braking feature in the event of such a fall.
Modifications have been made in safety straps in an attempt to add safety braking features, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 2,920,714 - Johnson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,407,898 Johnson and U.S. Pat. No. 3,840,091 - Conlon.
However, the problem throughout has been the provision of a reliable braking feature which does not interfere with the lineman's normal ascent up and descent down the pole. Inwardly directed spikes attached to the safety strap and tightly encircling secondary straps added to the basic safety strap have been found to cause a hindrance to linemen in their normal "rolling" ascent and descent by catching on the pole even when not needed. The result has been that the linemen prefer to remove these safety braking features from their equipment, rather than face additional delays in their work in freeing the safety equipment constantly.